There are a few companies out there that are now touting the data center in a shipping container. Sun was one of the first with its Blackbox, now called the Sun MD, while others include Rackable Systems' ICE Cube and Verari's FOREST

If data storage is about anything, it's trust. Now, who trusts MS? A company that has shown time and again that their primary concern is their shareholders, not their customers. A company that has shown time and again that their software cannot be trusted, neither on the technical nor on the personal level. And this company should handle my important data?

This is a very important question. With the Whitehouse blaming MS Exchange for the loss of emails (at least in part so no need for flames as that is how joe sixpack will hear the news), the NSA backdoor through security, the high number of vulnerabilities, refusal to use ODF, closed source code, and any number of questionable business practices, it is quite likely that governments as well as big business will begin to question the wisdom of choosing MS to handle their data. This is doubly true if any F/OSS

With the Whitehouse blaming MS Exchange for the loss of emails (at least in part so no need for flames as that is how joe sixpack will hear the news),

I will note though that joe sixpack doesn't even know what a data center is, much less needs one, designs one or does comparisons of various vendor solutions. So your argument doesn't really apply. If the designer of a data center is ignorant enough to miss the technical issues with the above-mentioned White House press release, and incompetent enough to us

It's a matter of trust. There are companies I do trust (to some extent), and others I don't. Mostly because of former experience.Now, what do people think of when they think of MS? Rock-solid systems? Perfect support? Reliable announcements? Neither of the three, quite far from it. We're used to MS crashing (even people who are anything but geeks can identify a BSOD, it's not just something you may sometimes get to see when you are a driver developer), support personnell that can't even tell me the differen

No, a valid point. Shareholders do put trust in MS, for the same reason they put a lot of trust into IBM in the 60s to 80s: It is a rock solid investment. Like it or hate it, but you simply cannot escape it if you need computers.

But here's the problem in this case: Shareholders don't buy MS products, they pump money into MS because they know MS products sell. And thus they won't use that storage system, or at least if they do, they do it as customers, not shareholders.

A company that has shown time and again that their primary concern is their shareholders, not their customers.

As a publicly-held company this is pretty much a legal requirement. Companies are allowed to ignore their customers, even for extended periods of time; they're not allowed to ignore their shareholders for any significant measure of time.

Now, generally, shareholders want happy customers or they don't achieve growth. No growth means loss of revenue, so to say that shareholder's interests are opposed to customer interests is a very short-term view of a company that has a few decades behind it.

Data center in a shipping container is hardly an original idea. Its one of those things that everybody thinks of on their own at some point. Not to mention the fact that just about every single spy movie ever made has got some scaled down version of one lodged into the back of a van at some point.

I know that sun was the first to bring it to market (I remember drooling over the pictures of it when it came out). My point was that to say that Microsoft somehow "stole" this idea is a little ignorant considering how obvious it is.The demand has been there for a long time (mostly from the military), the fact that Sun was the first company to ship one is irrelevant.

Sun didn't invent anything either, there were all kinds of people who came up with the "gee, let's containerize computing components", including the military. Your irrational, asshaterific hatred for Microsoft is boring me. Most of the shit you dweebs hold dear, like Linux, isn't original by any stretch of the imagination. The business world isn't about ideas, it's about execution.

So you're a Mac user, huh? You might want to look into a Windowing System known as "KDE", and then possibly something called "BSD", maybe even "RSYNC", or "THE NOKIA 770" before you start pointing fingers at anyone for buying/stealing ideas.

The point is that in any industry (and in the technology especially) ideas get passed around, bought, stolen, exchanged, traded, collaborated on etc. all the time. You point the finger at Microsoft for shipping a Data center in a Shipping Container because sun brought it to market first. Well, incremental backups have been around for YEARS before mac came along and started shipping software that does it and claiming it as their own, same thing with the "Dock" it existed in KDE wayyy before they did it in

Saw these at a recent military based symposium in Redmond. It is an incredible idea. Picture a scenario where you need a self powered IT infrastructure immediately. Bring these in and you have everything a disaster area/forward operating base/remote research facility would need for connectivity and information.

Governments, universities, militaries, NGO's could all use them.

Can be shipped by air, over the road, rail road, and sea.

You want your Marines/rescuers/construction team on-site now with a full com

Bring these in and you have everything a disaster area/forward operating base/remote research facility would need for connectivity and information.

Yeah, except for the massive power demands of an entire data center. You can't just plug the thing into a wall socket. Requires external cooling, too.

They're cool and all if you need to rapidly increase your capacity, especially if on a temporary basis, but when starting from zero, once you've built the infrastructure necessary to power/cool one of these, you m

Power is generally not a huge issue, as containerized generators are fairly standardized and rapidly deployable. Cooling on the other hand is where most of these solutions fail. A large air cooled generator can be shipped in on skids, but will usually require an external pump skid to get things operational.The problem with integrating cooling solutions is that it is too climate dependent to standardize. Tightly managed direct evaporative coolers can make a solid solution until you get to very hot, humid

Portable Chillers, including pumps, on a tractor-trailer are fairly easy to obtain (but expensive). I've seen plenty of these running in downtown Chicago during the big basement flood (when a contractor punched a hole in a tunnel running under the Chicago river, and flooded out hundreds of high-rise basements, shorting out lots of electrical services and submerging many cooling plants)
75 F wet bulb is fairly common in Chicago, (designing for 78 F wet bulb is not unusual here for sizing evaporative cooling

I see that Rackable Systems has finally developed a product that acts in a major television show, produces hip hop albums, and saves the world by talking to a high tech dolphin in one fell swoop. Brilliant!

The Virtual Earth team is an early adopter of the Microsoft containers, and has posted pictures [datacenterknowledge.com] of what they look like on the inside. Note that they're using customized Forest containers [verari.com] from Verari Systems rather than Rackable or Sun (at least at this point).

There are also videos available showing tours of the Rackable ICE Cube [datacenterknowledge.com] 40-foot container and Sun's Project Blackbox [youtube.com] (now renamed to the immensely more boring Sun MD) in a 20-foot container.

So they're shoving their "carbon footprint" at us wherever and whenever they can,and man-made global warming is A LIE! Okay so here's something I want you to see...but just going to youtube I find something hilarious...

"This video is to express my beliefs on Global Warming. If any individual should post a ridiculous comment, I will block that individual and remove that individual's comment This video is to express my beliefs on Global Warming.If any individual should post a ridiculous comment, I will block

Now, I am willing to change my opinion, provided you completely answer my following two questions.

1. What are your educational qualifications. Please list all relevant college degrees as well as the name of the institution which granted them to you. Feel free to list any papers you published on this topic.

2. Please tell me what this has to do with MS demoing a datacenter in a shipping container, and why I should give a shit o

"1. What are your educational qualifications. Please list all relevant college degrees as well as the name of the institution which granted them to you. Feel free to list any papers you published on this topic."So you're asking if I have a degree in politics, journalism or sociology then, because that's obviouslywhat qualifies people to hold an opinion on climate change:-) That and toeing to the line with IPCC.

"2. Please tell me what this has to do with MS demoing a datacenter in a shipping container, and

The fact that the military has had containers hosting communications, power production and AC equipment for decades. All of them transportable by air, land or sea. I worked in just such a box in Saudi Arabia in 1986, and that thing was probably 20 years old then.

But of course all these companies are the great innovators. Didn't MS invent them internets for us?